Loose Ends
by minkspit
Summary: "There was so much freedom, he realized, looking down at the crescent scars on his freed wrists, that he didn't know what to do with it." A collection of shorts about the Marshank Kids, vermin, and a few things between. No unifying theme. Old stories already posted elsewhere.
1. counting scars

_In which Tullgrew and Keyla visit an old place after Marshank, and after Martin._

* * *

There was no victory celebration.

Rose lay dead on the rocks, freedom was sweet and suffocating and mixed with tears and scarlet, and Martin left them. Felldoh and Hillgorse's voices still haunted everyone. The victory came at the steepest price. Keyla cried on Tullgrew when no one was looking, and Tullgrew didn't sleep for days. Barkjon lived in perpetual grief and happiness. So did Brome, and the weight of it almost crushed him.

There was no victory celebration. Not at first.

Perhaps there should have been, later. The seasons rolled on, Marshank crumbled without chained blood and flesh to feed it, and bare graves became grassy. One inch at a time, everyone picked up their lives and put them together. The gaps left by missing friends grew a tad smaller. Keyla's wanderlust born from discomfort-he didn't know how to live a peaceful, still life again, not at first-faded, and Tullgrew's many lash scars stopped drawing gazes at Noonvale. Barkjon's age bent him lower, but he marched on. Brome learned to enter his sister's room without lingering too long.

The pain faded, mostly. Enough to ache only on certain days. The second anniversary of Marshank's fall approached, and Keyla and Tullgrew, ever confident in their beautiful bad ideas, decided to head back. It was a secret. No one stopped them. Both of them debated on taking Barkjon with them before decided that maybe next year was better. This one would be a mess. They took a small barrel of ale with them. A quarter of it was gone before they even arrived.

"Sure brings back memories, doesn't it?" Keyla said. He forced his gaze away from the remnants of their old quarters. They tried to be happy. They'd been trying to be a lot of things lately.

"It does," Tullgrew said, and she didn't bother. She took in everything.

They sat close together in the rubble and looked at Marshank's ruins. A few old stories bubbled to top, and so did laughter. Regret mingled with old pains and suffering and good memories. The sun rose higher in the sky. Neither of them wanted to be there when dark fell on Marshank, whether it was broken or not. Keyla didn't know how much he drank until Tullgrew took his cup away from him.

"Enough of that," she said. "I can't carry you back. Not without you getting in trouble at Noonvale."

"You drank as much as I did," Keyla said. He wobbled to sit up straighter. He'd taken his long-sleeved shirt off, and it sat crumpled in his bag. It was too hot to wear that under his jerkin.

"I did," Tullgrew said. "But I'm not a twig like you."

Keyla glanced at the little barrel and their cups and prodded it with his foot. He heard a quiet slooshing noise. They'd cleaned it out together. Urran Voh wouldn't be pleased when they got back. Barkjon and Brome probably wouldn't, either.

"...it still hurts, doesn't it?" Keyla leaned on Tullgrew. She didn't move. He felt her scars press into his cheek.

"It does," Tullgrew said. She fiddled with her cup and looked at the dark ale in it. "I thought it wouldn't. Not this much. But every time I look at what's left of a wall, I can see all the backbreaking treks Hillgorse and I had to make, Barkjon lugging a log up and getting his paws sliced open on rope, and all the friends that fell off. I can still feel Hisk's whip cracking over my back, and the heat-it doesn't feel like the fight took away any of that."

"Hey, hey. It's over, Tull. We won," Keyla said, patting her paws, and Tullgrew wiped her eyes. "This place is still awful, whether it's falling apart or not. Feels like someone is draggin' a chain up my spine to see what's left of the barracks. Dark Forest, I hate this place. But we won."

"We did," Tullgrew said.

Marshank surrounded them in all its quiet, broken, half-overgrown sprawl. Flowers threatened to push through the cracked dirt. An empty bird nest or two lined niches in the walls. Nothing echoed the screams and whispers of rebellion that had brewed there seasons ago.

Keyla inhaled. He struggled to stand up and managed it. "I think we should give everybeast else a drink and go home."

"Right," Tullgrew said, still wiping the last of her tears. She accepted Keyla's help up but didn't lean on him.

Keyla frowned, and Tullgrew knuckled his shoulder and lent him a small smile when she saw his face. She was careful not to push him too hard.

"You dandelion-headed dolt," she said. "I'd pull you over while you're like this."

Keyla laughed, half affronted and half amused. He let go of Tullgrew's other paw when he saw she was ready to go. "I'm not _that_ far gone."

They walked past the dilapidated barracks, the emptied vermin stronghold, and the now calm main square. No more punished slaves writhed on the dirt or held their shackled paws over their heads anymore. They saw the no longer glittering pile of weapons leftover from Brome's cry: _if you want to come to Noonvale, drop your weapons._ The pile was rusty and melded together, now. Keyla and Tullgrew observed Rose's wall from a distance, and insulted and commented on Badrang's broken fortress as they went. They never strayed too close to old ground.

Tullgrew stopped before the forest. She waited to make sure Keyla caught up with her before she did anything. A filled ditch lay before them, looking like a seam cut into the earth and then resewn again afterwards. Keyla and Tullgrew easily could've stood back to back inside of it, if it hadn't been filled. The dirt was dry and crackly. Plants still grew atop the healing wound. The whole ditch snaked around the outskirts of Marshank, and trailed off into the woods, where it dwindled and disappeared. A ramshackle shed still stood nearby. Rusty shovels leaned in it.

Tullgrew and Keyla made eye contact, and Tullgrew tipped the barrel upside down and poured the rest of the ale on the ditch. The white wildflowers nearbly trembled under the patter of red, sticky rain. Everyone who died in the battle was carried home and buried the way Rose was. This was another graveyard.

"I'm sorry the rest of you didn't get to see this," Tullgrew said. "Mom. Dad. Everyone."

"Pasque," Keyla said. "We tried to take care of Barkjon and Felldoh. Really."

"We did enough, Keyla," Tullgrew said.

Keyla took the empty barrel from her grip and threw it into the woods. It crashed into a bush and stopped. The vast scar on the earth stretched out before them. No one had dug into it with a shovel for a long time.

"Let's go home," Keyla said.

He had a vicious crack in his voice when he said _home,_ and Tullgrew didn't comment on it. She linked her arm with his. Keyla's too-big jerkin slumped on his shoulder, and their scars bumped against each other and aligned. A breeze tugged at the sticky wildflowers.

"Let's," Tullgrew said.

They left together.


	2. old love

_The way you say I love you when I'm dead._

* * *

Cornflower always made an effort to get up in the morning.

It was harder now. Pins and needles pricked her joints, and days felt so long and nights felt so short; grey frosted her fur, but Cornflower chided anyone who implied this meant slowing down. Redwall always needed help.

But without fail, she always rose in the morning, pulled on her dress and apron, neatly tied her faded yellow and blue-flowered kerchief on, and went to help in the kitchens. Everyone made room for Miss Cornflower. Everyone knew her, Cornflower noted, but she wasn't sure if she knew half of them. Since when had so many new faces filled the Abbey?

Some were bright and loud, cleaner then a freshly minted penny, but others held glimmers of past faces in them. Sometimes Cornflower struggled not to let slip a _Winifred_ or _Basil_. The old hare's adopted son resembled him to a hair, even if the old hare himself refused to give up his joviality yet. He creaked worse than Cornflower, and needed a cane and spectacles, but he never passed up the opportunity to chide his son. Cheek always laughed at him or an onlooking Auma. Those two were constant companions now, Cornflower noticed.

"No, Dad, the door is the other way. I'm not the one making the mistake, wot."

Cheek was a sleek, strong otter with mischief always between his teeth, and he couldn't have fit beneath a cart wheel to play with it if he'd tried. That was without accounting for the dibbun ensemble that always followed him and Auma. Cornflower choked back calling one Jess. The little squirrelmaid was brave and determined, and she'd rescued another dibbun's ribbons from a tree they'd blown into. No amount of saying that name would undo what time had done, as much as it tempted Cornflower sometimes to try.

But Cornflower always made an effort. She never repeated any old names, even when she longed to, and she guided the young ones on their way. Matti remarked that "it's really you and Constance running the abbey, not the Abbot." He kissed her on the cheek. Matti didn't barely reach her hip anymore. He was taller than her, and his shoulders broader, and Cornflower didn't know when Tess had rounded out and Martin II became twenty seasons old.

Mattimeo still held the champion's sword. Cornflower expected the legacy to pass to Martin II soon. She saw the tapestry every time she passed through the hall on her way out, and it and its immortal stitches never faded. It seemed ages ago that they stole Martin back from Cluny and sewed him back into place.

Some days, her bones ached more than usual, and the walk past the gatehouse and to the other side of the abbey tried her.

But Cornflower always made an effort.

She sat next to the grassy grave marker. The breeze moved past slow today, rippling through the gardens and orchard and touching the feathers of the last old Sparra in the attic. Matthias hadn't ever cared for anything too grand, and Cornflower thought the grave fitted him. He lay near his friends and family, right where he'd always wanted to be.

She spoke to him, occasionally. She told him how much their son and grandson had grown and how proud she was of both of them. But overall, she didn't talk. Cornflower sat on the grass and ate her bread and cheese and apple slices and kept Matthias company. Talking wasn't necessary.

Yet sometimes she did. _I love you_ wasn't always words–it was soft company, cherishing the memories of someone long gone, and cupping what shreds of the past she had left to herself while she looked to the future–but sometimes it was. It placed all those old feelings and memories into a tangible body. Words allowed Cornflower to ran her hands across a tattered and well-adored quilt, one that didn't see the light enough.

"I love you," Cornflower said.

The grass around Matthias' grave rustled, quiet and sweet, and that was enough of an answer in itself.


	3. circles and whatnot

_cavoli riscaldati (Italian): the result of attempting to revive an unworkable relationship_

* * *

Plenty of things went in circles.

"That sharpish boulder perched on the hill—Blaggut, ya saggin' oaf, we've been here before!"

"I'm sorry, Cap'n. I thought—ow!"

"'I thought,' oh I'll give you I thought," Slipp fumed. "You don't think 't'all!"

"Sorry, Cap'n Slipp," Blaggut said, rubbing the back of his head and wincing. He withdrew from Slipp's reach as the latter fumed at the greenery around them, cursing Mossflower's leafy confines. "I figured the directions I got would get us someplace, but it dun't seem like that."

"Directions." Slipp snorted. He drew his cutlass, slashing at the bending weeds in front of them in a foul mood. "What'd you get 'em from, some bird who stopped t' chirp at you? You should've wrung its damned neck instead of trying to chat it up; maybe then we'd be full and wouldn't be walkin' in circles."

Blaggut let Slipp take the lead, quietly fading into the background as the other rat stalked on, hissing curses on all of the land. He knew his captain would be fuming for quite a while yet, and it was best to stay back and relatively out of sight until his fuse ran down.

In reality, there hadn't been a bird. Blaggut had woken up early, when dew laced the bushes and grass that sprouted from around the trees in Mossflower, and snuck off for a walk while his captain still snored, poking at buttercups far down the sloping hill there were on. There had been a hedgehog.

The hedgehog had been suspicious straight off, and Blaggut was surprised he hadn't come away from the whole thing with more quill-pricks and whacks around the head that he had. It would've been no worse than Slipp's usual treatment if it hadn't been for the club. But after enough begging, inquiring, and complying with the hedgehog's interrogation—the hedgehog seemed satisfied when Blaggut confessed he didn't know his numbers well and had no clue where he was, for one reason or another—the hedgehog had given him instructions to the nearest river and let him off with a warning. Blaggut had repeated the instructions and committed them to mind as best as he could before he came running straight back to wake up Slipp.

And now Blaggut had managed to muck them up.

Slipp sheathed his cutlass, marching on with less temper and more grim intent to get somewhere, and Blaggut let himself get closer. He was less likely to hit, now. The captain could handle more than one thing well, but when he was distracted like this, the chances of multitasking that involved hurting went down.

If Blaggut had taken the hedgehog's instructions on his own, he could've been long gone by now. The river was—supposedly—nearby, and Slipp had been snoring and sleeping sounder than the dead. Even in the revealing dew, Blaggut could have snuck off and vanished for good, Slipp would've probably thought he got to the river and fell it in and drowned, the two would go their separate ways, and none would be the wiser.

But he couldn't abandon his captain.

Blaggut cringed when Slipp ground a daisy head under his heel.


	4. murder marriage

_enamor me: in which Silvamord obtains a husband by dubious means._

* * *

The first time Urgan Nagru met Silvamord, she tried to kill him.

The second time Urgan Nagru met Silvamord, he tried to kill her.

So, obviously, the third time was the charm. That and being armed and ready to murder their respective dates or escape if necessary. Alliances did not forge themselves, Silvamord knew, and Urgan–as puffed up and intolerable as he was–would make a suitable ally. Even if she hated him. Just a little.

"You're late," Urgan said, scowling and crossing his arms. His pelt armor and metal claws clinked against the table.

They'd brokered a peace talk in Silvamord's camp, and so far, it was off to a rocky start. Silvamord's rats lingered around Urgan's entourage nervously. His ragtag band had tucked into the food offered without waiting up and were making a pathetic mess of themselves. They kept talking loudly when Silvamord entered. Bread crumbs sprayed everywhere. Silvamord could already see that Urgan had helped himself to half of her wine without asking.

Scratch "just a little." She hated him a lot. Silvamord's fingers twitched, and she felt the urge to strangle him with his own stupid pelt coat.

"Unlike you, I have my own territory to defend," she said, hefting her spear and looking at him with disgust. The blood sprinkled on her pelt skirt hadn't cooled.

Urgan eyed her and looked slightly taken aback by the blood. She noticed the widening of his eyes. Good. He hadn't managed to hide his expression. Silvamord didn't think she liked the other twinge of interest in his gaze, fleeting as it was.

One of Urgan's weasels leaned over the table, sneering. He had a piece of bread clutched in one paw and crumbs on his whiskers. Silvamord could've stomped on his collar bone and turned him into an accordion of condensed ribs. The weasel was too skinny to make any threats she could take seriously.

"Ya took long enough," he said. "We didn't come here ta waste time and wait on you."

The bowls on the table clattered and the weasel yelped when Urgan hooked his silver claws into the corner of his mouth and yanked him down. One bowl still clicked and spun.

"Don't be stupid," Urgan growled. The weasel stayed frozen and quiet against the table. "We came to make an alliance on her turf, not so you could run your sorry mouth and make a fool out of yourself. Understood?"

The weasel tried to speak, and Urgan dug his claws in more. The weasel stopped immediately. He rolled an eye down to nervously survey the claws sticked out of his mouth. Silvamord saw none of his other subordinates were surprised. So Urgan had a temper. Not unexpected. But he did have the teeth and claws to back it up.

Urgan released his weasel with a disinterested and disgusted shove, and he tumbled off the table. There was a thud when he hit the ground. The unfortunate weasel scrambled away holding his snout. Silvamord didn't think he'd find his dignity any time soon.

"Cute," she said, spinning her spear. "But if any of your rabble opens their mouths without asking again, I'm jamming my spear up their nose 'til it comes out the back, and so does their brains. Is that clear?"

"Clear enough," Urgan said.

Silvamord narrowed her eyes and crossed her arms. Was he taking her seriously?

Urgan, noticing her irritance, reclined further in the chair. He smirked. Silvamord was right. He had teeth and claws to back his temper up, and plenty of teeth. He had a clear, sharp smile that spoke of a cat sneaking up on a mouse, and something about that smirk and what it did to his expression woke a stirring in Silvamord's chest.

She hated it. She wanted to punch him in the face. Urgan looked even more full of himself than he already was. That wolf pelt was quite an ego boost.

"Good," Silvamord said. Her rat guards lingered around her, but not too close. None of them wanted to be near a vitriolic hot spring. "Because that also applies to you if you decide to do something stupid. Sitting there in that wolf pelt with a smirk on your face doesn't make you any tougher than the rest of your group. There's no proof you killed the thing either. If we're making an alliance, you need to be more than some mugugly kit playing dress-up and toying with his mother's knives." She looked down her nose at him.

Urgan's smirk disappeared faster than if Silvamord had slapped it off his face. She felt satisfaction in seeing his jaw tense and watching him lean over the table.

"Listen here, vixen–"

"I'm the one who called you here to listen, so watch your tongue."

Urgan bit down on it. Silvamord realized she enjoyed this. A look of murder flashed through his eyes, but that was par for course, and she didn't mind it. The two stared at each other down. The rats and Urgan's group grew tense, and Silvamord gave Urgan a vicious grin. He returned it with some invested hatred included. Even across the table both of them almost felt at each other's throats.

She could deal with this. Urgan would make a good ally, Silvamord thought distractedly, if he wasn't a waste of time. He was a danger even if he wasn't an ally. She'd need to keep him close.

Marriage and murder were about the same thing anyway.


	5. flora fire

_Some flowers and a warrior, but not the kind you expect. Or: something that could have been._

* * *

Night falls on the forest, slow and heavy, and blankets the dark walls of Marshank in the distance. It waits more ominously than any storm cloud or mountain ever could. Fires flicker in the camp, and draw peels of orange across the leaves and ground, but outside, the forest is dark.

Rose has never understood Felldoh. She's friends with him, and they talk, whenever they cross paths and snatch some conversation from the busy air, but she knows there's a gap between their ideals. A ravine, really, Rose thinks. It was the place a bridge used to span before he burned it.

So when she finds him sitting outside the camp with a dagger in his paw, shaping a chunk of wood into something other than a spear, for once, she sits next to him. No time like the present to begin a friendly argument or get to know her friends better. Especially since the present might be the only thing they have.

"You're up late," Rose says. Felldoh raises an eyebrow. Mild surprise arches across his face, but it doesn't last.

"I'm on watch," he says. He flicks the dagger, and another woodchip spirals off. Heavy scars wrap around his wrist and paws.

"Felldoh, you are filled with lies," Rose says. "Tullgrew and Barkjon tried chasing you to bed earlier. Keyla threatened to smack you over the head if he saw you taking watch again. That's why you're back here."

Felldoh grins—something rare and rarer still nowadays, and only present when his family is mentioned; Rose takes a moment to cherish the sight—before he rolls the chunk of wood over in his paw.

"Don't tell Tullgrew," he says.

"I won't," Rose says, "for your sake." She laughs. "But gracious, have you seen the arms on her? She could likely pick up Ballaw and Celandine at once, and a few others, to boot."

"I have," Felldoh says. His grin fades. Rose feels like she's trodden on another one of those shadows that entangle certain subjects around the Marshank family. They're near impossible to avoid and she feels she couldn't anyway. Felldoh's knife gets to work again.

"I hope you don't mind if I keep you company," Rose says, untangling the needle, thread, and shirt she was repairing from her bag. Brome is usually the seamstress of the family, but her little brother is tired now, and asleep. She decided to take care of repairs for him.

Felldoh grunts. "Go ahead."

They sit for a while, Rose humming softly and letting her needle find its way along the seams in the murk, Felldoh carving away at the piece of wood. He stops when he sees her needle flashing in the faint light.

"Are you sure you don't want to head back to camp?" he says. "It's dark out here for sewing. You're going to stab yourself."

"I'm not the one with a knife," Rose says. "I'll be fine, Felldoh."

"Fine, if you think so OUCH!"

It is just like Felldoh to be concerned about someone else the instant he stabs himself.

A minute later, and after Rose wraps his hand, Felldoh is rolling his eyes at her snickers. "I have never seen another beast display the meaning of irony so well before," Rose says.

"Laugh while you can," Felldoh says, and he sounds like he wants to laugh but nothing is coming out, even if he's relaxed and at ease with Rose's touch. Rose runs a finger over his knuckles. The back of his paw is hard with callouses and hate. Her whole paw, in comparison, is as soft as a petal, even if she's picked up some callouses on her palms lately. Wars are not won without effort, Rose thinks.

Felldoh seems to read her mind. He lets the unbandaged part of his paw splay against Rose's, and it saddens Rose to see the look of wonder in his eyes at her soft paws, the same way it saddens her when that look appears on Keyla's, Tullgrew's, and Martin's faces.

"You've picked up some scars," Felldoh says. "The last time I touched your paw it was as soft as a lump of silk. Your brother's, too."

"It's been a while since I joined this fight," Rose says. "Haven't we all?"

That strikes something in Felldoh. Rose isn't sure what. A feeling, maybe, or the pile of loathed memories and determination he keeps in his heart to fuel his never ending fire of rage. Bright anger dances in his eyes. Rose knows it isn't directed at her.

"You need to sleep later," she says. Her paw slips from Felldoh's and they sit like they were again. "Every day, the battle for Marshank gets closer. You'll need your strength when it arrives. Take care of yourself for your family, too. They worry themselves sick about you."

"Tullgrew, Keyla, and Martin know what I'm fighting for." He's grim. "The battle nearing is exactly why I can't sleep."

He's using that 'because I can't afford to' fighter voice. Rose wants to hit him over the head with a frying pan.

"That wasn't a request, Felldoh the Warrior," Rose says. "If you don't head to bed later, I will find Tullgrew and have her cart you off, and Barkjon too."

For a moment, anger flashes across Felldoh's face, then disbelief, and Rose looks right back at him. Felldoh laughs.

"Put away that glare, Laterose," he says. "I feel like you're trying to burn a hole in me, Dark Forest. I don't know how Brome wins any fights with you."

"He doesn't," Rose says. She puts a paw on Felldoh's shoulder. "Stay alive for them, Felldoh. Please. That will be enough."

"No," Felldoh says. Confusion flits across his face before he puts his knife away. The chunk of wood sits in his uncut paw, unfinished. He squeezes his bandaged paw into a fist. "It won't be."

"It won't help them to lose you," Rose says. The gap is here. She feels it in the darkness, stretching between them. She's seen too much death and pain in the past few days to think of losing another companion, even if it will happen.

"It won't help them if I do nothing," Felldoh says. He restlessly picks up the knife again and resumes carving. "They've suffered too much for this to go on much longer. They deserve a home and an ending, and I'm not waiting for it. I'm going to bring them one."

"You think living isn't enough?" Rose says. Frustration flares in her chest. That fire is in Felldoh's voice again, lighting his eyes like a flame that eats away kindling too fast and then extinguishes itself, and she does not like it. Living is harder than anything else, Tullgrew told her before, and Rose wishes she was here to put sense in her brother's head. Even if it wouldn't work.

"I know it isn't," Felldoh says.

"Living doesn't mean waiting," Rose says, "it means—"

"—forging on, I know, and it's the hardest thing to do," Felldoh finishes. Another wood chip flies into the shadows. "I've talked to Tullgrew and Barkjon. But living without pushing on isn't enough for me. I need more, for them."

"Fine," Rose says.

Felldoh stands. He offers Rose a paw to help her up, and when she refuses it and stands on her own, Rose swears she sees a momentary smile. The new, half sad half real kind that's slightly less rare than his grins, but still not commonplace.

"You're stubborn," he says.

"So are you," Rose says. The frustration and some bewilderment float in her chest, with some dismay, and she wishes she could see a moment through his eyes.

Felldoh sobers. Pinpricks of firelight dance across his ears and put actual flames in his eyes and fur.

"You've never been there," he says. "I'm glad you weren't. I wouldn't wish it on anyone but Badrang himself. But you don't know what living in Marshank was, or what being a slave is like, and I don't expect you to understand."

"Help me understand it," Rose says.

Felldoh pauses, and then presses the chunk of wood into Rose's paw. She sees a flash of new blood on his bandaged palm before he withdraws. Sharp and rounded edges push into her paw. She opens it, and sees the rough flower Felldoh carved.

"If you had been there," Felldoh says, "you would be out there beside me, Rose, making spears and trying to kill Badrang yourself, and you would hate rest more than death."

He moves and picks up a bundle behind the log they sat on. Rose sees he made spears earlier after all. Felldoh hefts the bundle over his shoulder and looks back at her.

"You remind me a lot of what I and lots of other beasts used to be," he says. "See you on the other side of the war, Rose."

Felldoh disappears through the bushes with a rustle of his tail and heads into camp. Rose waits before she gathers her bag and darned shirt and follows him.


	6. mountain winter

_Winter hits Salamandastron._

* * *

The volcanic mountain was always dormant but its inhabitants never were.

All doors and windows were shut to the cold and fires stoked, the fire lizard lay in quiet dormancy, polished and put away in a closet until the season of the corsairs came again on the frosty sea, and the mountain was white. Lava had long ceased to pour down the sides of the rocks, but it was replaced by droves of laughing hares tumbling down the snowy sides with their bright scarves flying, leverets kicking up snow at each other and squeaking ungracefully as companions stuffed snow down the back of their uniforms.

More often than not, a "wot!" was punctuated by someone being nailed in the face with a snowball and the roar of hooting laughter and pursuit that could wind on for hours ("Nail him, Brackers, nail him, wot!" "'Nail him'? I'll nail you, you foppish flippin' piece of slush! Get back here, wot! Surrender!") until someone smelled food–and then the stream of boiling hares reversed and fled back up the mountainside, with anyone standing in their way at risk of their own peril as they blazed a path through the snow-

("Oh bally bloomers, that was the corporal! You just ran over the corporeal!"

"I–sweet sainted aunt, I did! Speak t' me, sah, speak to me! Cripes, someone call the brigade! Call the whole infirmary; I've plastered the poor sah an' he's not gettin' up! I've laid 'im out; I've put him to pushin' up bally daisies!"

"No, you dunderbrain, he's comin' around, see, wot? Just needed some persuasion with a muffin or two.")

Not a moment of stillness was to be had until every last hare slumbered. Salamandastron's fires lay not entirely in their forges, after all.


	7. berry good friends

_The way you said I love you: a taunt, with one eyebrow raised and a grin bubbling at your lips._

* * *

"I'm not sure this is good idea."

"Nonsense, this is fine," Keyla said, waving Brome off. Even with a brier scratch across his face and red-pricked knuckles from the last blackberry bush they had raided, he remained as confident as ever. "The log will hold. We just have to dash across it, pick the bushes clean before Tullgrew gets here, and then we can join up again and keep going along the other bank. Barkjon and the Noonvale cooks'll have more berries than they'll know what to do with, and we'll beat her in the contest. You know that someone has to unseat her."

The streambanks weren't wide, but they lay narrow and slick. Pebbles flecked their muddy sides and paved the bottom of the clear-running water. Brome suspected that the tree making a bridge across it had only fell a few seasons ago.

"You're optimistic," Brome said. "I don't think we'll be able to beat Tullgrew, not through all those bushes. They're five feet thick, at the least, and we can't crawl to the back." But nonetheless, he set his berry basket down and rolled up his pant legs. Keyla waited on him before he waved at the log.

"Come on," he said. "Let's go."

Keyla started across first. He tested the log with caution. Once he was sure it wouldn't give, he continued across it. His rudder slithered over the tree's striped bark behind him. Brome followed, his basket tucked beneath his arm. Perhaps the tree was stable, but Brome felt relieved they'd crossed it when Keyla reached the other side. He was almost across when he felt a shift. Brome froze. Keyla, who stood on the bank, looked over his shoulder. The lash scars on his back hadn't faded yet, and they peered out of his sleeveless jerkin. He'd never wear anything less.

"Brome, are you alright?" Keyla turned. "Hold on, matey, I'm coming to get you. Just grab my paw–"

"Keyla no," Brome shouted. He had felt an entirely different shift than the one Keyla expected, but the words came out too blurred and too late. With a twist, the log rolled.

Brome plummeted and snatched hold of the log at the last second. He clung to it, tail dipping into the stream below. Keyla, who had remained on the bank and directly in the log's path–and who had leaned forward to grab his mouse friend's paw–tripped and disappeared with a yelp. He fell into the stream below. Brome heard the squelch and splash. The mouse pulled himself up onto the log. It took some leg milling and a little jerk, but he managed it. His berry basket remained unscathed. Only a few blackberries had spilled into the stream below. Once his foothold steadied, Brome peeked into the stream. His pink ears swiveled.

"…Keyla?"

Keyla sat up with a groan. Mud covered his left side, his jerkin, and slicked half of his face. The tip of his tail and legs escaped, since they'd landed in the stream, but Brome pictured them getting them dirtier as Keyla waded to the bank. His berry basket stuck to a steeper bend of the creek. It lay on its side, bobbing in the water, and blackberries drifted through the current. Brome struggled not to laugh as Keyla stood up. Squashed berries and tiny pebbles glued to his back and side among the mud.

"Are you alright, Keyla?" Brome said.

"Yes. I'm fine." Keyla groaned and looked down at himself. "Cripes, I'm a mess."

"No wonder," Brome said, keeping a solemn face. "It looks like the mud cushioned your fall."

"Hardy har. If you don't wipe that grin off your face, Brome of Noonvale, I'm going to give you a big hug when I get out of here. We'll see who's cushioned in mud then!"

"Keyla, what are you doing?"

Keyla stopped mid-climb up the river binks. Brome couldn't stifle a giggle. Across the bank, Tullgrew put her knuckles on her hip. She raised her eyebrows at the mud-plastered Keyla trying to climb out of the stream. Her eyes traveled from him and his emptied basket to the amused Brome sitting in the grass.

"Someone had an adventure," Tullgrew said.

"Yes, we did," Keyla said. "Tullgrew, be kind and throw Brome down here with me?"

"Not on your life," Tullgrew said. "But I will help you climb out of the stream if you come over here."

"Fair enough," Keyla said. He crossed to the bank Tullgrew stood on, and Brome carefully walked back across the unsteady log.

Tullgrew couldn't stifle a smile when she grabbed Keyla's paw and helped pull him up the bank.

"Dark Forest, you're more mud and squashed berries than otter, Keyla." Brome knew if she wasn't helping him up with a basket in the other paw, it'd be creeping over her face to hide her further growing grin. "What did you do? Throw yourself into the mud and roll in it?"

"We had a tussle with a log," Brome said, "and he lost."

"Let me guess," Tullgrew said. "You and Brome thought you'd run over the log to the berry patch to try and out-pick me, and you didn't think it'd roll."

"That sums it up. Remind me not to fight logs again. They're as fierce as any vermin, if not fiercer." Keyla got a foot on the bank and stood. His slight body glowed with the wet, slick mud, and Brome wasn't sure if he was looking at his otter friend or not. He and Tullgrew struggled not to laugh.

"Where did that grin come from, Mister Lashed-by-a-Log?" Tullgrew said. "Your teeth are nearly glowing under all that muck."

"How did you know the log rolled?" Keyla said. "You weren't here when it happened, and you didn't know about the berry patch either."

Brome turned his gaze on Tullgrew.

"I feel you're leaving something out," he said.

"Oh, matey, I know what she's leaving out," Keyla said. "She came here a few weeks earlier to beat us in the last picking contest, and then she slipped off that log–the same way we did–and got herself properly covered in muck, and that was the day Aryah wouldn't let her into the kitchens until she scrubbed herself down from her eartips to her rudder. Isn't that right, Tullgrew?"

"You always remember far too much," Tullgrew said. She couldn't cloak her smile now and her muddied hand didn't try to hide it.

"So how badly did Barkjon scold you?" Keyla said. Brome could feel the cheekiness radiating from him and his always shining grin. "You're something else. You fell into the mud right on your face, but a minute ago, you were ready to mock Brome and I for doing the same thing, and not telling us you did. I love you, Tullgrew–muddy face and lies and all."

Brome couldn't contain his laugh at Keyla's solemnity, and Tullgrew shoved him back into the stream. Keyla landed in the water with a splash and another yelp.

"I think our jester can lay in the stream and wash himself off for a little while," Tullgrew said. "He lost all his berries anyway, so he's out of the contest. Do you want to head back to the eastern patch and see if the birds haven't stripped it yet?"

"You know, I think I do," Brome said. Keyla, lying in the muck and running stream, looked at the sky and snorted.

"You're rogues," he said. "Both of you."

"So I've been told," Tullgrew said. She swung her basket to the side and sashayed away, broad, scarred shoulders taking in the sun. "But like you said–you love us."


	8. a free rat

Blaggut knew the word "freedom" meant many things. The majority of those meanings besides "being free" were written down, and he couldn't make head nor tail of them. For the longtime corsair, reading was akin to searching for meaning in a noodly bowl of soup. Education wasn't Blaggut's strong suit. A lot of things weren't, really. Slipp called him "stupider than a deaf n' dumb pile of rocks" more than once, and while a tiny part of Blaggut begged to differ, he agreed more oft than not. The captain said it often. It had to be true.

It never really occurred to Blaggut that perhaps Captain Slipp was wrong, or that freedom didn't just mean not wearing actual chains. Blaggut avoided thinking. He knew what thoughts were like: he'd start on one, or a few, and then suddenly they rattled around in his skull like pebbles until Captain Slipp caught wind of them and smacked them or berated them out of his head. They were a nuisance. The dumb muscle wasn't supposed to think, Blaggut thought. It made for trouble. Asking too much made for trouble, too. Anything outside of a small box built and managed by Cap'n Slipp made for trouble. Maybe waves were allowed to rock the boat. Blaggut wasn't.

By the time they reached Redwall, they had no more boat. Blaggut had done some thinking, for better or worse. Slipp hadn't smacked all the thoughts out of him. The trip and dealing with Blaggut left him strung out and grouchy, and Blaggut got to keep a few considerations to himself. The box creaked open the tiniest margin. Blaggut still didn't push at the edges too hard. He was here with Cap'n Slipp for a reason, after all. Nothing was worth disobeying him. Or hindering him. Freedom hadn't arrived yet.

And then Blaggut looked down at the wide-eyed mouse dibbun in front of him-small, pudgy, sneaky, and very much unafraid of his ugly face-who extended a small paw and said "You wanna play boats?"

Blaggut's heart melted.

Okay. Maybe this was worth it. He accepted the small hand.

"Sounds like a good idea t' me," he said.

The box Slipp had put him in started to open up.


	9. suffering

There was no grave for him, not like there was one for Hillgorse or Felldoh, but they knew there might as well be one.

"I don't understand," Keyla said. Tullgrew sat next to him. Hillgorse's grave was overgrown with ivy and posies, and it quietly bloomed in front of them.

"Losing Rose hurt him too much," Tullgrew said. "He couldn't stand it."

"I know that," Keyla said. His hand clenched into a fist as his throat closed, and hot angry tears welled in his eyes. "But why couldn't he stand staying with us?"

Tullgrew wrapped an arm around him and said nothing.


End file.
